/m/prospect

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This is eerie: This story made me think of the Wagner Mateo case (16-year-old Dominican center fielder's $3 million deal with the Cardinals was voided by the team when he failed a vision test). And just as I started to look up whatever happened to Wagner Mateo, MLB Trade Rumors reported that the Diamondbacks had released him after five years in which he failed to advance beyond (EDIT:) A ball as either a position player or pitcher.

The Yankees don't deny anything, essentially it's a screwy system where a team can sign a kid without signing him. They reached agreement, he stopped working out for other teams, he moves up to Yankees training camp to workout with their coaches for months, and then when he gets hurt or shows poor work ethic, they yank the agreement.

I don't think any other team would've done anything differently. It's foolish to pay 2.1M + penalties for a prospect you find out either injured or has much worse skills than you thought,, or both. But teams shouldn't be given such a big window to back out of signings, barring fraud on part of the trainer/prospect.

I'm fairly certain that the Yankees are lying about not having an agreement, but I have to defend their decision, he got injured and gained weight, there is no reason to sign him at that point in time, even with an oral agreement in place. I would assume that it's implied in any oral agreement, that "provided the goods are in the same condition as when we made the agreement" caveat should apply.

Now of course this article makes it sound like the Yankees did something to hurt the development of the player, but this article is strictly told from the point of view of the trainer, so you have to take some of that with a grain of salt.

Sounds like a deal where both sides negotiated in bad faith. I went into this expecting to side with the player, but sitting on the couch, gaining weight, and hurting your shoulder make it tough to keep the moral high ground.

Apparently top prospects stop negotiating with other teams, skip showcase games, and move to train with Yankees for months on end for no reason at all. They are just as stalker-ish as needy ex-girlfriends.

The only person who screwed up here is the trainer. He never should have let this kid leave until there was a signed contract.